


«i«i 



17 B9 









,0 -%_ 



A 



•A »i, A> 









o 



c 



'^,. .^■ 






»-'• ,v^' 



^-^^ 



.-i>- 









•• „*' 






•^o. 









V^ 



^-^^ 









.-^ ^ V !>>->.* 









■^^^* .^' %., 






o 



0-2^ 



r/- ,^N 












o 


^o 


V^^^ 


.;;f|p>; 




0^ 




^° 


•"'^^ 






°< 






'^;*o':v^- 








' * 


v> 


\' 





lO-, 



r.-" 



%> 






0' 



.,-r r\:,: 






4 O. 



^0' 



■.^ ,?■ ' O » 







4 o 

■>:. "^^ A^ ^'^M/K\ %^ .& 



•^o 



*" 3 « , ■^ 

'> ' • « s ' 



% ^ 



:, "^o V*' -'^^•- "^-^^ 0^ : 



•?-n*.. 






^^--^ 



•4 o 




^ 



RJDaUOI5 




Copyright, 1901, by 

Edward H. Brush 




IROQUOIS 

PAST AND PRESENT 

BY EDWARD HALE BRUSH 
Including 

Brief Sketches of 
BED JACKET 
CORNPLANTER and 
MARY JEM I SON 

BY EDWARD DTNWOODIE STRICKLAM> 



"When I am gone and my 
warnings are no longer heeded, 
the craft and avarice of the 
white man will prevail. My 
heart fails me when I thinly of 
my people, so soon to be scat- 
tered and forgotten." — 

—Red Jacket. 



' tSJSIfcVi^i.. 




A. L. BENEDICT, M. D., 

Superhitendent of Ethnology and Archiroloyij, 
Pan-American Exposition, 

Whose work in behalf of study of aboriginal life entitles 
hira to the gratitude of those interested in preserving the 
records of the red man, and especially the facts of his his- 
tory upon the Niagara Frontier. 



By tiaaOBt, 
10 Ja '07 



The Iroquois of the Past 



BEING A GLIMPSE OF A SENECA VILLAGE TWO 
CENTURIES AND ONE QUARTER AGO. 




T IS the year of the Christian era 
1678. The notes I am about to 
record may never pass under any 
human eye but mine own, for 
we are about to undertake a 
journey full of hazard and mor- 
tal peril, into the country of the 
fierce but noble Iroquois. If 
perchance they permit us to return with our lives, 
we will give thanks to the Holy Virgin ; and for 
my part I will be satisfied with adventure in these 
western wilds, and ready to return to our sunny 
laud of France, whence I sometimes fancy I never 
should have strayed. 

Be it known to any who may read the lines I 
am about to pen, that the bold and, I ofttimes 
think foolish band of which I am a member is 
bearing company to the adventurous Eobert Cav- 
elier, Sieur de la Salle, whose thoughts fly contin- 



ually across the wild and lonely world that stretches 
toward the snnset. The great Columbus, almost 
two centuries now agone, hoped by Sailing from 
Spain out into the sunset sea to come to the shores 
of Indo, with their golden sands, and the Sieur de 
la Salle believes that by journeying westward be- 
yond the awful cataract of Ne-ah-ga-ra, even to the 
far-off river flowing southward, of which the In- 
dians tell such strange tales, he may come to a 
passage leading to the South Sea and to China 
and the distant shores of India, which Columbus 
himself sought. Thus will the trade, the power 
and the prestige of New France be increased, and 
incidentally the fame of the Sieur de la Salle will 
be handed down to future generations. 

We have now come to the border of the region 
known to white men, and are about to pass on into 
a realm which but few civilized men have entered, 
and fewer still of these have come out again alive. 
A ship must be built to cross the great fresh water 
sea lying to the west of Ne-ah-ga-ra, and the consent 
of the powerful confederacy of the Iroquois must 
be sought if the great white canoe is to pass un- 
molested by red men. The capital of this con- 
federacy is the central council fire of the Ononda- 
gas. The Onondagas are the fire keepers of the 
league, which contains besides themselves the 
Mohawks, Cayugas, Oneidas and Senecas. The 



7 
Mohawks guard the eastern door of the " Long 
House," and the Senecas the western, for by this 
figure the Iroquois Indian describes the league 
by which the five nations are knitted together 
and enabled to maintain their prowess over sur- 
rounding tribes. Their " Long House " extends 
from the majestic Hudson to the blue waters of 
the lake named for the Erie nation, and from the 
Catskill range to the broad St. Lawrence, up which 
have come the Sieur de la Salle and his fellow 
voyageurs on their perilous journey westward to 
unknown and perchance hostile regions. The vast 
territory between, the Ho-de-no-sau-ne, or People 
of the " Long House," the Cabin-builders, hold as 
their hunting grounds, and here and there in the 
midst of the forest, through which run their nar- 
row but well trodden trails, one comes across the 
stockaded villages, within which are their bark 
houses, constructed after a fashion peculiar to 
these strange and interesting people. 

The brave Sieur de la Salle, as I have said, be- 
lieves it necessary to disarm the suspicions of these 
far-famed Iroquois before going further on his 
bold but important j^roject of building a ship to 
traverse the lake named after the Eries. The 
Senecas, who are the westernmost of the Five 
Nations, have become alarmed, it is rumored, by 
the preparations of the French to build a fort at the 



mouth of the great river, Xe-ah-ga-ra, and a vessel 
above the Falls. For this reason it is deemed ex- 
pedient to dispatch a number of the company, in- 
cluding the eloquent and learned priest, Father 
Hennepin, to negotiate with these Senecas, at 
their capital, east of the river Genesee, that they 
may oppose no obstacle to the building and launch- 
ing of the ship, which her master has determined 
to style the Griffon. It is midwinter, and a cheer- 
less journey, indeed, it is likely to prove, but nev- 
ertheless it will afford us an opportunity to see 
and observe these remarkable people, who it is 
said by some deserve the title of Romans of the 
Western World. 

The hardships of the expedition through the 
wintry and unbroken forest were keen, but with 
blankets, warm clothing and moccasins for protec- 
tion, the dangers of the journey were braved, and 
the last day of December found the party at the 
great village of the Senecas which is called Ta-ga- 
ron-di-es, as near as the European characters can 
spell the strange sounds of the Seneca tongue. 
On arrival at the village, which was surrounded 
by a stockade, and outside of which they say in 
the summer time are fields of corn and beans and 
squashes and tobacco, we were received with much 
consideration, and conducted to the bark house or 



k!^ &Ub-DA'-WA-bA 
GR- TURTLE- 
RAT TLEr 



9 
cabin of one who appeared to be the principal 
chief, though it is said there is none who corres- 
ponds to king or governor of the whole tribe. 
The young men bathed our travel-worn feet, 
and anointed them with bear's oil. The squaws 
brought us roasted dog and frogs pounded up 
with a porridge of Indian corn, carrying their 
infants over their shoulders in the Ga-ose-ha, as 
they call it, a sort of baby frame. They regarded 
the whole party with much curiosity, though in- 
deed 'tis fair to say, with scarcely more than we 
showed ourselves concerning them. The next day, 
being the first of the year, Father Hennepin, who 
had brought with him his portable altar, and wore 
his coarse gray capote, with the cord of St. Francis 
about his waist, and carrying rosary and crucifix, 
celebrated the holy sacrifice of the mass and 
preached the mysteries of the faith to the mixed 
assembly of French and Indians. Despite our 
firm adherence to Christian doctrines, I much 
mistake if we would not rather have seen the Iro- 
quois perform their devotions to Ha-wen-nc-yu, 
and offer their thanksgivings in those strange 
dances, accompanied by weird barbaric songs, 
which are their methods of worshipping the Good 
Creator. But these ceremonies occur only, we 
were told, at certain seasons, and the most inter- 
esting and significant rites are not for the curious 




IROQUOI^ 




gaze of the pale face. After the good Hennepin 
had concluded his services, the grand council was 
convened. It was composed of forty-two of the 
elder men of the Senecas. Their tall forms were 
completely enveloped in robes made from the skins 
of the beaver, wolf and black squirrel. With 
calumet in their mouths, these grave councilors 
took their seats on their mats with all the stateli- 
ness and dignity of Venetian senators. 

I will not dwell at this time on the speeches 
which were delivered on both sides, and with much 
show of friendship and consideration. With an- 
other of the company, I slipped out of the council 
house to make an inspection of the village. The 
stockade enclosed a small town of perhaps 150 
houses or cabins, some of which were of consider- 
able dimensions, and we were told housed some- 
times as many as five to ten different families. 
These lived, not all in one room, but in different 
compartments, so to speak, of the same building. 
In general, the appearance of the village, which 
they tell us, is typical of the Iroquois communi- 
ties — showed these Indians to be much in advance 
of other tribes whom it has been my fortune — or 
misfortune — to meet. To protect their villages 
from sudden assault, they usually run trenches 
about them, throw up the ground upon the inside 






'.•■«-1 





13 
and set a continuous row of stakes or palisades in 
this bank of earth, fixing them so that they in- 
cline over the trench. Outside the stockade is 
their cultivated land, sometimes sub-divided into 
planting lots assigned to different families. The 
practice of putting stockades about the villages, 
we were told, used to be well nigh universal 
among the Five Nations, but since their power 
over other tribes has been generally acknowledged, 
the necessity for it has somewhat disappeared. 
The Gii'-no-so-te or bark house of the Iroquois is a 
comfortable dwelling as compared with the make- 
shift structures in which our party have been often 
forced to sojourn since reaching these unexplored 
wilds. Some of these " long houses " of bark and 
poles are from 50 to 100 feet in length, and about 
16 in width, and have partitions at intervals of 10 
or 12 feet. There are sometimes as many as ten 
or a dozen fires in one of these houses, two families 
commonly using one fire, and the smoke escaping 
through a hole in the roof without the aid of a 
chimney. The height of the average Ga'-no-so-te 
is from 15 to 20 feet. In constructing the house 
they set up a frame- work of poles and cover this with 
boards and bark held together by splints and fast- 
enings of bark rope. One feature of the baik 
house, always the same, is the manner of en- 
trance. There are not doors upon 




- ga - o Wo ° 



14 

always two, one at each end. Over one door is cut 
the tribal totem or family device, as our nobles in 
Europe put over the entrances to their castles their 
heraldic inscriptions and coats of arms. Indeed, I 
have somewhere read that this very system of her- 
aldry, which elaborates distinctions in rank between 
our peoples in Europe, traces its origin back to a 
time when our ancestors were themselves a primi- 
tive people, having their gentes and their totems, 
much as now do these red men of the new world. 

We found in these cabins of the Senecas a some- 
what home-like aspect, despite the difference be- 
tween their methods of living and ours, that 
touched a chord of sympathy and awakened a feel- 
ing that perchance their homes were as dear to 
them in their way as ours beyond the sea, where our 
kin are now wondering what ill fortune may have 
befallen us in our wanderings in a distant clime. 
From the rafters of the Gii'-no-so-te hung the curi- 
ous implements, relics and ornaments which me- 
thinks must be the lares and penates of this red- 
skinned people. There were tomahawks of strange 
and peculiar workmanship, quivers full of arrows, 
and bows painted in ingenious fashion, headdresses 
of eagle's feathers, garments of various sorts from 
the skins and fur of animals, while in addition to 
such articles of apparel or ornament there hung 
also from the roof great clusters of corn and such 



15 
other fruits of the ground as the Indian raises in 
summer and preserves for use during the months 
of winter, A sight that interested us much 
also was that of the squaws pounding up the corn 
into meal in stone mortars by means of a pounder, 
thick and heavy at each end and narrow in the 
middle. The crushed grain they make into cakes, 
and boil until it becomes hard, when it makes a 
bread that may be carried upon a long campaign. 

But we were not permitted long to pursue our 
inspection of the cabins, for our presence at the 
council was required. The Sieur de la Motte had 
finished the speech in which he sought approval 
from the Senecas of the enterprise of the Sieur de la 
Salle, telling them that its object was to bring 
merchandise from Europe by a more convenient 
route than the St. Lawrence. At the conclusion 
of the speech a present to the chiefs was made con- 
sisting of 400 pounds weight of hatchets, knives, 
coats and a large necklace of blue shells. The 
value of the whole was not great, as we Europeans 
measure the value of such articles, but to the un- 
tutored red men it doubtless seemed of large ac- 
count and worth much in exchange in the way of 
the privileges of trade. Thus do the white Chris- 
tians, I am loath to relate, take advantage of the 
ignorance of the pagan Indian. La Motte also 
promised, for the convenience of the Seneca nation. 



16 
a gunsmith and blacksmith to reside at the mouth 
of the Niagara, for the purpose of mending their 
guns and hatchets. If the red man goes on at this 
rate, adojiting the improvements of his white 
brother in the way of warlike weapons, the supple 
arm of the brave will soon grow awkward in the 
making of the stone tomahawk and the handling 
of the bow and arrow. Other presents added by 
the French to those enumerated in order to clinch 
their arguments, so to speak, were several coats and 
pieces of fine cloth, and to me there was something 
ludicrous, withal, in the idea of these children of 
the forest garbing themselves as our fine lords and 
ladies do in the Court of His Most Gracious 
Majesty, King Louis XIV. Yet, I doubt not, the 
skins and furs which, after their own kind, become 
them so well, will in time give place to homespun 
and velvet, as the case may be, and who shall say 
but you will one day see squaws admiring them- 
selves before their mirrors in the bonnets of a Paris 
milliner. 

And this reminds me that I have a friend among 
the feminine population of this village, Gah-ne- 
ga-des-ta by name, which as near as I can make it 
out means " Shallow Water." She is a bright 
maiden, and helped me much in understanding the 
queer ways of this community, for she has picked up 
from the Jesuits and the Sulpitians a smattering of 



O - 6QuEr- - 50r~iT 



19 

French. I trust the fair damoselle to whom I 
plighted my troth before leaving la belle France 
would feel no jealous pangs because of her atten- 
tions. The first night of our stay at Ta-ga-ron-dies 
we slept the sleep of the just, and rested more 
comfortably than in many a long day before. 
Along the sides of these bark houses run seats 
which can be used to lounge upon in the day time 
or sleep upon at night, much as one might use the 
bunks in a ship's cabin. Here we slept, wrapped 
up in our blankets and furs, and for my part, ex- 
cept for the unwonted smoke and the absence of 
motion, I would have thought myself aboard ship 
and crossing the Atlantic. 

The second day of our stay was occupied by the 
Senecas in replying to the speech of the Sieur de 
la Motte, and they in their turn made their pres- 
ents to us. Evidently, as aids to their memory, 
they used small wooden sticks, which the speaker 
took up as he replied seriatim to the several points. 
The ceremonies were ratified, so to speak, by the 
presentation of belts of wampum made of small 
shells, strung on fine sinews, and whose use they 
regard as necessary for the sealing of a contract, in 
the same manner as we affix a stamp or seal to an 
official signature. Their treaties are ratified and 
confirmed in this way. The wampum belts have 
a significance which can be explained by those 




30 
versed in the history of the nations, and the keep- 
ers of the wampum are supposed to train their 
memory to recall the facts of the history of their 
nation or league through the arrangement of the 
beads of the wampum belts. 

The speeches made by the Indians occupied a 
long time in delivery, for with the red man time 
seems to be of no consequence whatsoever. I am 
not sure that our arguments much impressed them, 
but at any rate the council broke up in good feel- 
ing, as was evidenced by the entertainment with 
which they provided us at its close. This was no 
less a performance than the torturing to death of 
a hapless young prisoner of war, who had been 
captured near the borders of Virginia. I will spare 
the reader the pain of a recital of the details of 
this torture. But for this incident I had borne 
away a most complimentary opinion of the char- 
acter of our hosts. Yet it merely teaches us, 
despite the excellence in many respects of their 
moral attributes, and their belief in Ha-wen-ne-yu, 
these children of the forest should have the cruelty 
in their natures subdued by contact with the teach- 
ings of the loving Christ, and so I say, speed on 
the messengers of the cross, and may God in His 
wisdom prosper their glorious mission. 




itiii" :-^ 

lip . ' 1^^ 



'f^l *4« 




ETHNOLOGY BUILDlNti. 



Pan-American Exi'osniON. 

THE IROQUOIS OF THE PRESENT. 
The condition of the Ii^oquois Indians on the 
reservations in New York State and Canada at the 
present day should be viewed in the light of their 
history. It is unfair to them to compare their de- 
gree of civilization with that of their neighbors 
of white blood, without reference to that history. 
The differences in race characteristics, and in 
standards of morality and belief, should be taken 
into consideration in forming an estimate as to the 



22 

progress any particular people have made relatively 
to some other people. It is said of the Chinese 
that in order to understand them we must remem- 
ber that their point of view, literally and figura- 
tively, is diametrically opposite our own. A prin- 
ciple somewhat the same applies in the case of the 
red man. In respect to the Iroquois, their condi- 
tion for centuries past as a people living in the hunt- 
er state, though in many respects possessing some 
degree of civilization, should be borne in mind if 
a right judgment concerning them and their con- 
dition to-day is to be reached. 

The origin of the inhabitants of this country 
preceding the white race is wrapped in impenetra- 
ble mystery, and we must leave it to the most 
learned of archaeologists and students of ethnolo- 
gy to continue their dispute as to whether the red 
man is a native product of the continent or an 
importation from what, more or less paradoxically, 
we call the Old World. It is sufficient for the 
purpose that he has been here in this Western 
World for many cycles of time, as the monuments 
he has left attest, and for reasons which no doubt 
an all-wise Providence understands, the conditions 
atfecting his advancement were not, during this 
period, so favorable as they were for the progress 
of the white races upon the Eastern Continent. 
At the time of the discovery of the Continent by 



23 

the white race, the Five Nations then composing 
the Ho-dc-no-sau-nee occupied a strong position 
among the aboriginal tribes of North America, 
and during the two succeeding centuries they made 
themselves virtually the rulers of the north eastern 
portion of what is now the United States and low- 
er Canada. Had it not been for the advance of 
white civilization and the conquest of the " forest 
statesmen " by the European settlers and pioneers, 
it is fair to presume that with the wonderful 
strength the Iroquois League possessed, a strength 
that has held its members together during three 
centuries of change and decay even to the present 
time, they would have gone on upward toward a 
condition approaching civilization. That, of course, 
is a subject upon which we can only speculate ; 
but it is certain that at the era of their greatest 
prestige they constituted the most powerful Indian 
Empire — if such their league could be termed — 
north of the Empire of the Aztecs ; and their 
confederacy and its institutions were well calcu- 
lated to develop all the latent powers of the race, 
and bring to their fruition the best qualities pos- 
sessed by this remarkable people. The League of 
the Iroquois was indeed a most unique and extra- 
ordinary institution in its cohesive powers and its 
capacity to hold together in bonds of frater- 
nity and equality and ties of kinship, people of 



24 




Century Old Cabin of Nancy Johnson, Tona\yanda 
Reservation, Exhibited at Six Nations' Village. 



originally different tribes or nations. It is no 
wonder some of the Iroquois legends attributed 
their origin to a being of more or less divine origin 
who is known as Hiawatha, or that Ha-wen-ne-yu 
was believed to have made its progress and devel- 
opment the especial object of His care. 

As to the character of the people of the Six 
Nations, both now and in the times of which the 
history of the State of New York and Canada and 
the Niagara Frontier has so much to say, of course, 
the opinions of individuals will differ. One per- 
son will see in a typical member of the race at the 
present time much more to admire than another, 




Edward Cornplanter, Senkca Indian, Cattaraugus Reservation. 



27 

according to the respective point of view. It can- 
not be questioned that the moral endowments of 
the Iroquois were of a liigh order, and indeed are 
so to-day, despite the effects of "fire water" and 
other things which the Indian has adopted from 
the white man's civilization. A well-known his- 
torian has told us that " Nowhere in a long 
career of discovery, of enterprise and extension 
of Empire, have Europeans found natives of 
the soil with as many of the attributes of human- 
ity, moral and physical elements, which, if they 
could not have been blended with ours, could have 
maintained a separate existence and been fostered 
by the proximity of civilization and the arts. 
Everywhere, when first approached by our race, 
they welcomed us and made demonstrations of 
friendship and peace. Savage, as they have been 
called, savage as they may have been in their assaults 
and wars upon each other, there is no act of theirs 
recorded in the history of our early settlements and 
of the New World, of wrong or outrage, that was not 
provoked by assault, treachery or deception-breach- 
es of the hospitality which they had extended to 
us as strangers in a bare and foreign land What- 
ever of savage character they may have possessed, 
so far as our race was concerned, it was dormant 
until aroused to action by assault -or treachery of 




, 28 

intruders ujion their soil 
whom they had met and 
treated as friends." 

It is unfair to judge of 
the character of any race 
by isolated and perhaps 
unrepresentative speci- 
mens ; nor is it fair to 
judge from the condi- 
tions to-day of their de- 
A Seneca Grbat-Gbandmother and her scendants, of What tlie 
Great-Granddaughter Iroquois were 200 years 

ago, when by courage and 
force of character and the bond of union between 
the Five Nations of the League, they had estab- 
lished their supremacy over all surrounding tribes. 
The Iroquois were a fighting jieople and a people 
who loved the forest and the hunter state. With 
the opportunity removed for war and the hardi- 
hood and endurance which its exposure and ad- 
venture involved, and with the forests which they 
roamed and through which they hunted the deer 
and the elk, laid low by the ax of the white 
man, it is little wonder that their character has 
perhaps lost some of the vigor it once possessed. 
A century of perpetual peace, so far as the relations 
of the Iroquois Indians among themselves and with 
the whites is concerned, has given little chance for 



11 



H 







Moses Shokgo, Seneca. Cattaraugus Eeservation, 

Descendant of Capt. Shongo, of Revolutionary 

Fame. An Accomplished Musician, and 

for many years u. s. bandmaster 



30 
the development among the later generations of 
that physical courage for which their forefathers 
in the days of the bark houses and the bow and 
arrow were famous. Yet the war for the Union, 
and later the Spanish-American war, showed that 
the Iroquois brave was still a true warrior. He 
fought then for the Stars and Stripes, apparently 
with as much love for that ensign as his ancestor 
in the time of La Salle fought for the honor of his 
tribal totem or the glory of the League which had 
" one camp fire, one pipe, one war club." 

The Seneca, or the Onondaga, or the Cayuga 
upon the reservations of New York State or Can- 
ada to-day, is of much the same athletic build, 
much the same stolid, uncomplaining temperament, 
and has much the same capacity for endurance of 
hardship as one fancies must have been the case 
with his forefathers in days of old. The fondness 
for out- door sports survives, though the farm lands 
and commons of the reservations give compara- 
tively little chance for hunting game, as the elders 
were wont to do. At the festivals, occurring at 
frequent and regular intervals during tiie year, 
these sports occupy a conspicuous part in the pro- 
gram, and that the young bucks of to-day possess 
much of the same dexterity and suppleness so char- 
acteristic of the Indian of the past no one can 
deny who has seen the snow snake, for instance, 



31 

thrown hundreds of feet during the games of the 
mid winter festival or New Year's dance. 

But in considering the conditions of life and 
standards of character among the Iroquois upon 
the reservations to-day, one must remember that 
the white man's test of character and success is 
very different from the red man's. The white 
man is very apt to apply the test of wealth. This 
the Indian has never been accustomed to do. In 
the olden days, the greatest chiefs were often the 
poorest men, and to-day upon the reservations one 
finds that the most influential men, and those most 
respected and heeded in the councils of the nation, 
may have little of those things which, among the 
whites, would be requisite to "standing" in the 
community, or which would secure them election, 
for instance, to the clubs composed of "leading 
citizens." 

When one considers that the Senecas and Mo- 
hawks, the Onondagas and Cayugas, the Oneidas 
and Tuscaroras, but a century or two ago roamed 
over all the lands where now stand the prosperous 
cities and villages of Central and Western New 
York and Lower Canada, it seems strange that 
the present inhabitants of this territory know and 
apparently care so little about the people who were 
formerly its owners. Very strange ideas prevail 
about these Iroquois Indians among the average 



82 




HuUSK AND FaMII^V OF EdWAKD CoRNPLANTER, 

Seneca, Cattaraugus Reservation. 

whites, who, though living so near them, have 
never been upon the reservations. Many suppose 
them to be rather dangerous j^laces into which to 
venture, pLaces where one's scalp is scarcely safe, 
little realizing that the Iroquois of those peaceful 
communities are law abiding and generally well 
behaved, and that murders and heinous crimes are 
less frequent among them than in many white 
communities of corresponding population. 

The report of the United States Interior Depart- 
ment for 1890 says, as to the reservations of New 



33 
York State : " No felonies were reported during 
the year, and but few trivial offenses, except intox- 
ication. The number of Indians in jail or prison 
for offenses against persons or property during the 
year in an Indian population of 5,133 was as fol- 
lows : Onondaga,!; Cattaraugus, 9; Tuscarora, 
3; St. Eegis, 3; total, IG." The same report says : 
"They are self-sustaining, and much farther ad- 
vanced in civilization than any other reservation 
Indians in the United States, and as much as an 
average number of white people in many locali- 
ties. They have borne the burden of peace with 
equanimity, and met the demands of the war for 
the Union with patriotism and vigor. The Six 
Nations have been charged with being pagans, 
heathens, and bad citizens generally, but investi- 
gation shows the latter charge to be false. In the 
matter of creed, among the Tuscaroras there is 
not a pagan family, recognized as such ; among 
the Tonawandas and Onondagas very nearly two- 
thirds belong to the pagan party. Of the Cattar- 
augus and Allegany Senecas, a majority belong to 
the pagan party, but of the Cornplanter Senecas 
and St. Regis Indians, none are pagans. On all 
the reservations crimes are few, stealing is rare, 
and quarreling, resulting in personal assault, in- 
frequent. '' 



34 




Log Cabin, Tonawanda Reservation. 



Unfortunately for the Indian in general, as well 
as the Iroquois in particular, the impression has 
been received that his great business is scalping 
people, and that when he is not drunk he is on the 
war path. Needless to say, both of these impres- 
sions are utterly unjust, at least so far as the Iro- 
quois Indian is concerned. There exists among 
the Iroquois a society known as the Six Nations 
Temperance League or Society, which originated, 
so far as can be ascertained, among the Indians 
themselves, and has been in active operation for 
more than 60 years. It has yearly meetings or 
conventions, which are well attended. The Iro- 
quois reformer of a century ago, Handsome Lake, 



35 

or Ga-ne-o di-o, taught the Iroquois especially to 
avoid drunkenness. Although it is doubtless true 
that a fondness for "fire water" is a peculiar 
failing among the Six Nations Indians, as well as 
among their brothers of the Western plains, there 
are many whose soberness is habitual, and who are 
never seen under the influence of liquor. 

The prominence given in the history of the col- 
onization of this country to the war-like opera- 
tions of the red man has over emphasized the 
cruel and bloody instincts possessed by the Indians 
of those days. Among the Iroquois there was 
quite another side than that presented in this way, 
and their home and community life in the stock- 
ades within which their bark houses were erected 
was well worthy of study. 

The Iroquois villages upon the reservations to- 
day are quite different in appearance from the Iro- 
quois villages within the stockades which the pio- 
neers found in Central and Western New York, 
The bark house (G;i-no-so-te) long since disap- 
peared, and its immediate successor, the log cabin, is 
now disappearing before the advance of the frame 
house with its up to-date arrangements and con- 
veniences. But though one sees no totem as of old 
upon entering an Iroquois village of today, and 
though he looks in vain for the scalp pole or the 
sweat lodge, yet it does not take long to find that 



36 




Long House, Onondaga Reservation. 



many of those customs which the Iroquois have so 
long cherished remain. The " Long-House," or 
Council House, usually near the center of the 
" pagan " portion of the settlement, is the home 
of the ancient usages. There is no well defined 
division upon the reservations between pagans and 
Christians, but usually the Christians are found 
mostly in one portion and the pagans in another. 

Many persons have imagined that upon the res- 
ervations in New York State they would find the 
Indians living in wigwams. In the first place, the 
old time Iroquois did not live in wigwams, being 
known as ko-no-shi-o-ni, or cabin builders, and 



37 



J 



IKK 







Where Handsome Lake, Ga-ne-o-di-yo, is Buried, 
Onondaga Eeservation. 



having generally built their houses in oblong fash- 
ion of bark and poles. The transition from the 
bark house to the log cabin was not so radical a 
change as though it had been a change from the 
wigwam. Both the ancient period of the stockade 
with the bark houses and the totems, and the more 
modern period of log cabins are portrayed in the 
exhibit of the Six Nations at the Pan-American 
Exposition, 

As typical of the reservations of New York State, 
it may be of interest to give a brief description of 
tliat of the Onondagas. It is but fitting, in any 



38 
event, that honors should first be paid to the On- 
ondagas, for in the old days they were tlie " fire 
keepers," and their council fire was in a degree the 
capital of the confederacy. To be an Onondaga 
was considered the highest honor, and though ex- 
ercising no greater authority than members of 
other nations, they received a certain amount of 
deference from the latter which was not allowed to 
all members of the league. At the present day the 
Iroquois village on the Onondaga reservation pre- 
sents much the appearance of an ordinary farming 
settlement. It has certain aspects, however, which 
distinguish it even in outward appearance from a 
white community. These are perhaps most notice- 
able about the "Long House," or "Council House" 
of the pagan Onondagas, which stands upon a 
slight eminence in the center of a commons. 
Nearby is the old council house (still used at cer- 
tain periods for that purpose), which must be 
nearly a century old and was the home of the 
pagan Iroquois rites when the prophet of the " new 
religion," Handsome Lake, died. He was buried 
beneath the floor of the old council house, but the 
latter was afterward moved a short distance away, 
so that the grave of the prophet is now said to be 
in the door-yard of William Isaacs, Middle of the 
Sky, and is unmarked by any monument. A move- 
ment which had for its object the erection of a 



39 



• J- ^-,- 




1 • 1 
■J 




m 





Old and New Long Houses, Onondaga Reservation, 
AND House of William Isaacs. 

monument was started a few years ago, but came 
to nothing. Near the Council House is the cemetery, 
which is not especially noticeable for unusual ap- 
pearance. A short distance farther on is a pretty 
Episcopal Church and mission house. The ser- 
vices at this chapel are well attended and there is 
a choir of vested singers, who render the ritual of 
the Episcopal Church in a devout and musical 
manner. The Methodists have also an attractive 
place of worship. Many of the dwellings are frame 
houses, well painted, wilh fairly well-kept grounds 
surrounding. As illustrating the home life of the 
Indians of this reservation, it may be noted that 



40 




Church and Mission House of the Good Shepherd, 
Onondaga Reservation. 



the furniture of these homes indudes ten organs 
and one piano. 

The reservations in New York State occupied by 
Iroquois Indians are the Onondaga reservation, 
near Syracuse ; the Cattaraugus reservation, in 
Cattaraugus, Chautauqua and Erie counties, about 
30 miles from Buffalo; the Tonawanda reservation, 
about twenty-five miles from that city ; the Alle- 



41 
gany reservation on the Pennsylvania border near 
Salamanca ; the Tnscarora reservation, near Lewis- 
ton, in Niagara county, and the St. Regis reserva- 
tion on the St. Lawrence river. There is also a 
small community of the Iroquois in Warren coun- 
ty, Pennsylvania, which contains a population of 
about 100, and is known as the Cornplanter reserva- 
tion. The total acreage of the reservations of the 
Six Nations in New York State is 37,327.73. with 
an Indian population of about 5,500. The land value 
of these reservations is estimated at about $2,000,- 
000. The law and the facts show that the reserva- 
tions of the Six Nations of New York are each in- 
dependent, and, in some particulars, as much sov- 
ereignties, by treaty and obligation, as are the 
several States of the United States. The St. Regis 
reservation, however, differs somewhat in this re- 
spect from the others. The members of the Six 
Nations of New York residing on reservations or 
living in tribal relations do not vote at county or 
State elections, nor do they pay taxes to the county 
or the State. They are, therefore, Indians not taxed. 
With the exception of the St. Regis Indians they 
are amenable to National and State courts and 
laws only in respect to certain crimes. Ordinarily, 
order is maintained and offenses are punished 
through courts and officers constituted by the In- 
dians themselves. The Senecas, for instance, have 



42 

their peace-maker courts, peace-makers being 
elected for each reservation, and the term of office 
being three years. The Seneca Nation also has 
its president, treasurer, and other officers. The 
League of the Iroquois in the United States has a 
chairman who corresponds to the To-do da-ho of 
ancient times, a clerk and a keeper of the wam- 
pum. 

The Six Nations Indians of the Grand Kiver 
reserve in Canada occupy a tract situated in the 
township of Tuscarora and part of the township 
of Onondaga, in the county of Brant, and in 
the township of Oneida, in the county of Hal- 
dimand. Province of Ontario. The reservation 
contains, in all, about 43,696 acres. The Iroquois 
of this reservation migrated into Canada at the 
close of the war of Independence. They were 
located by a grant made by Sir Frederick Haldi- 
mand, Oct. 25, 1793, on a tract stretching along 
the banks of the Ouse, or Grand River, and ex- 
tending six miles deep on either side of the stream, 
which was originally purchased for them from the 
Mississangos. The grant was confirmed by Let- 
ters Patent under the Great Seal, April 1, 1793, 
by Governor Simcoe. The reserve comprised 
694,910 acres, but the greater part has been, 
at different times, surrendered by the Indians, 
and thus has passed out of their hands. The 



43 




Interior Church ok the Good Shepherd, 
Onondaga Reservation. 



population, according to a recent census, is 
3,'J88, and includes all branches of the confederacy. 
As a rule the Indians of this reservation are indus- 
trious and progressive, and are engaged in agricul- 
ture and other pursuits more or less similar to 
those of their white neighbors. 

On the Bay of Quinte is a reserve of about 17,- 
000 acres, occupied mostly by Mohawk Indians. 
The population of the reservation is about 1,200, 



44 
but these Mohawks no longer belong to the Six 
Nations League as a body. 

There is also in Canada a community of Oneidas 
who came from the vicinity of Oneida Lake, in 
New York State, in consequence of an order of the 
United States Government to move west of the 
Mississippi River. They purchased their present 
reservation with money brought with them from 
the United States. These Indians number about 
800, and their reservation contaios about 4,600 
acres of land. Another community is the 
Indian village of Caughnawaga. In 1677 a band 
of Iroquois, residing at that time in the valley of 
the Mohawk, migrated to this place under the in- 
fluence of Roman Catholic missionaries, and in 
1680 the Seigniory of Sault St. Louis was set apart 
by grant of the King of France for ''the conver- 
sion, instruction and subsistence of the Iroquois," 
and these Indians were accordingly removed to 
that place. There is a population of 2,000 and the 
reservation includes some 13,000 acres. 

The Mohawk Nation is represented chiefly at 
the present time by the Iroquois of St. Regis, 
who are in both New York and Canada, and 
are a most prosperous and industrious commu- 
nity. They at one time formed part of the 
Caughnawaga band, but in 1760, drunkenness 
having been quite common among the Indians of 



45 
that community, a priest who was solicitous for 
tlieir welfare, prevailed upon a portion of the band 
" to remove out of the way of liquor." The vil- 
lage was named Jean Francis Saint Eegis, after the 
French ecclesiastic, who died in 1690. The Cana- 
dian reservation is oh the banks of the St. Law- 
rence, opposite the town of Cornwall, and has an 
area of nearly 7,000 acres, with a population of 
about 1,300. The St. Regis are famous for their 
fine basket work and for their skill in navigating 
the waters of the St. Lawrence. They are much in 
demand as guides for tourists and as hunters in the 
forests surrounding. The St. Regis Lidians have 
comparatively little in common with other Indians 
of the ancient Iroquois confederacy. The St. Regis 
community includes the reservations in New York 
State and Canada, each having approximately the 
same population. There are several smaller com- 
munities of Indians belonging to the different 
nations of the Iroquois in Canada, the total num- 
ber of Iroquois Indians numbering about 8,500. 

Observaiion and the facts of vital statistics go 
to show that the conditions of living on the reser- 
vations of New York State at the present time 
tend rather to the increase than the decrease of 
the Indian population. Indeed, there is a wide- 
spread error in regard to this whole subject of the 
supposed "dying out" of the aboriginal peoples 




j 



John Louis, Famous Pilot of tbe Richelieu & Ontakio 

Line Steamers Through the Rapids of 

THE St. Lawrence. 



47 
of America. As to the Iroquois, at least, there is 
good reason to believe that their numbers at the 
present time are not far from the same that they 
were two or three centuries ago. Many of the 
causes which operated to the decrease of the Iro- 
quois at the beginning of the 19th century are, to a 
large extent, removed at the beginning of the 20th, 
and conditions now seem to favor the increase of 
the race in numbers and virility. 

The Six Nations Indians on the various reserva- 
tions of New York State and Canada now number 
about 16,000, according to the last report of the 
U. S. Department of the Interior. The same re- 
port says: "It can be stated with almost a cer- 
tainty that the League of the Iroquois, since the 
advent of the Europeans on the American Conti- 
nent up to 1880, never exceeded 15,000 persons, 
and it never had an available fighting force of more 
than 2,500 men." Earlier writers give the num- 
bers of the Iroquois in former times in much larger 
figures. A statement recently made by the U. S. 
Commissioner of Indian Affairs affords a partial 
explanation of the seeming contradictions. He 
says : " Upon the statute books and in modern 
discussions of these races the names of many tribes 
known to the early history of the country are no- 
ticeably absent, and this leads to the popular con- 
clusion that the Indian is fast dying out. This is 



48 




Long House, CAXTAiiAUcius Reservation. 



a misconception of historical data, and is based 
largely upon the hypotheses that the country now 
known as the United States was, on the advent of 
Columbus, populated very densely. At the time 
of the discovery of America the explorers from the 
Old World were prone to exaggerate every unusual 
occurrence which was presented to them in the un- 
known world upon which they had landed, the few 
being magnified into the many, and the dark myste- 
rious forests were peopled by fancy with myriad 
hosts of red men guarding the secrets to untold 
mines of golden wealth. Lured by fanciful imagin- 
ings and heroic tales, the hardy warriors of the age, 



49 




House of George Pierce, near Long House, 
Cattaraugus Reservation. 

penetrating these sylvan retreats and finding not 
the gold they sought, glorified their prowess by the 
multiplicity of aborigines they met and conquered. 
It must be remembered that the domain of the 
United States is of vast exte-it ; that the aborig- 
inal inhabitants rarely lived in villages ; that the 
women tilled the soil, and the men were engaged 
in almost constant strife with other tribes, and ri- 
val bands with each other in the same tribe. Ag- 
riculture being neglected, or pursued only by the 
weaker sex, the chase principally provided for life's 



50 




House of Dklos Kettle, near Cattaraugus Long House. 
His Family are Grouped on the Porch. 



urgent necessities, and game in sufficient quanti- 
ties to support a large population, must have large 
ranges of land. Hence, taking the concurrent 
facts of history and experience into consideration 
it can, with a degree of confidence, be stated that 
the Indian population of the United States has 
been very little diminished from the days of Co- 
lumbus, Coronado, Raleigh, Capt. John Smith and 
other early explorers. As stated, the age of dis- 
covery, the age when America was first made 
known to the civilized world, was one of exagger- 
ation. The early colonists, sprinkling their small 



51 
settlements near the coast, watching the tumbling 
waters of the river with its source hidden in the 
great beyond, and flowing past the cabin, seeing 
the dusky form of the Indian warrior sending his 
occasional arrow into their homes, and looking 
upon the dark and mighty forests, imagined that 
the vast country beyond was the Empire of innu- 
merable savage enemies who were ready to dispute 
their ownership by rights of discovery and occu- 
pancy. Early accounts, therefore, of the number 
of Indians in the United States at that time must 
be taken with due regard to the credibility of the 
witnesses presenting the same. The first census 
of the Indians was made by the General Govern- 
ment in 1850. Thomas Jefferson, however, in 1782, 
made two lists of Indians who, at that time, lived 
in and beyond the present line of the United 
States." 




Drawn by Gar-nos dr-yan-oht, Jesse Cornplanter, 
Seven Year Old Seneca Boy. 




Interiok of Long House, Cattaraugus Eeservation. 

RELIGIOUS CEREMONIAL OF THE 
IROQUOIS. 

" And David danced before the Lord with all his might." 
II Samuel, VII, 14. 

The religious ceremonial of primitive peoples 
always contains something corresponding to what 
is known as the dance. From the Biblical text 
quoted above, it would seem that even among the 
Hebrews, in the time of King David, dancing occu- 
pied some place in worship. 

The American Indian has always been especially 
attached to his various dances, and among the Six 
Nations Indians to-day the dance holds a foremost 



53 

place in the picturesque and often beautiful cere- 
monial, by means of which the so-called " pagan" 
Iroquois offer their thanksgivings to Hii-wen.ne-yu 
at the appointed seasons. The red man's ideas of 
worship and his ideas of the Supreme Ruler of the 
Universe are often quite different from those. of 
the white man, and that too, notwithstanding 
three centuries of association with the whites, has 
somewhat modified the ancient customs and be- 
liefs. 

Longfellow, in " The Song of Hiawatha," draws 
a picture of how 

" Gitche Manito, the Mighty, 
Smoked the Calumet, the Peace Pipe, 
As a signal to the Nations." 

To the mind of the white man, trained in the 
school of 20th century Christianity, there is some- 
thing bordering very closely on the irreverent in a 
picture of the Creator which portrays Him as 
smoking a pipe. It is not so with the red man. 
The burning of tobacco has a place of high honor 
among the ceremonies of the American Indians, 
particularly among those of the Iroquois, and 
smoking the Peace Pipe has long been a stately 
ceremony. Therefore, what more natural than 
that they should ascribe to lla-wen-ne-yu, the 
Master of Life, attributes'and habits like their 



54 
own, in this as in other respects. Indeed, the Iro- 
quois teaching and legendary stories regarding 
their Supreme Ruler abound in jiictures of the 
Creator which portray Him engaged in occupations 
similar to those of the Indian. So that it is in 
perfect consonance with the red man's ideas of di- 
vinity when Longfellow says of Gitche Manito, 
the Mighty, that 

"From the red stone of the quarry 
With his hand he broke a fragment. 
Moulded it into a pipe-head. 
Shaped and fashioned it with figures ; 
From the margin of the river 
Took a long reed for a jaipe stem, 
With its dark green leaves upon it ; 
Filled the pipe with bark of willow, 
With the bark of the red willow, 
Breathed upon the neighboring forest, 
Made its great boughs chafe together, 
'Till in flame they burst and kindled." 

Tobacco was one of the best of the gifts of the 
Good Creator, and in the religious ceremonies of 
the Iroquois it is burned when thanksgiving to 
Ila-wen-nt'-yu is offered, to carry the message to 
His ears and make the thanksgiving an acceptable 
one. 

There is a similarity between the use of tobacco 
by the Iroquois in their religious ceremonies and 



the use of incense by many Christians in offering 
" tlie sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving." But 
in the Christian use of incense, especially in its 
association with the mass of the Roman Catholic 
Church, there is an idea of sacrifice in atonement 
for sio, the mass typifying *' the great sacrifice 
once offered by Christ himself," while with the 
Iroquois it had not the idea of atonement, but was 
simply the means established by Ha-wen-no-yu, by 
which the faithful and virtuous Indian might gain 
access to His ear and an answer to his petition. If 
the Iroquois who are called " pagan " had a short 
confession of faith, it might read something like 
this : 

" When Ha wen-ne-yu, the Master of Life, the 
Good Creator, made the Indian, he placed him in 
a world well stocked with animals which he might 
hunt, and fish which he might catch for food. He 
gave the animals also that their skins and their 
fur might be used as a warm covering for man's 
body. He gave the fruits of the 'earth, also for 
food, and herbs which might be used as medicine 
to cure the ills of man. All this was to the end 
that man might live happily and contentedly, as 
he should do." 

It is difficult for the white man to understand 
the Indian or comprehend the ideas underlying 
his character, social customs or religious beliefs. 



56 
because the red man is a child of Nature and the 
white man, in becoming civilized, has drifted away 
from Mother Nature in many respects, and is not 
dependent on her to the extent that his brown- 
skinned brother is. The degree to which Nature 
in her various aspects entered into the life and 
character of the Iroquois is shown especially in 
the religious or semi-religious functions performed 
at stated seasons on the reservations of New York 
and Canada to-day by the so-called Pagan members 
of the various tribes or " nations " Longfellow 
describes how Hiawatha in his childhood 

"Learned of every bird its language, 
Learned their names and all their secrets ; 
How they built their nests in Summer ; 
Where they hid themselves in Winter ; 
Talked with them where'er he met them." 

The picture of Hiawatha is a typical one. Every 
Indian boy went to school to Mother Nature, and 
the jiortrait would have been as truthful of Hia- 
watha, whether that more or less mythical charac- 
ter was an Ojibway, as Longfellow, perhaps for 
purposes of metre, made him, or lived among the 
Onondagas, as Iroquois traditions tell us. 

I have spoken of tobacco as being regarded by 
the Iroquois as among the best of the gifts of Ha- 
wen-ne-yu, of its ceremonial use in connection 



57 
with thanksgiving to the Good Creator, at various 
festivals, especially the New Year's festival, when 
the ancient ceremony of burning the white dog 
was performed. But the Iroquois were especially 
grateful to Ha-wen-ne-yu for other fruits of the 
ground, chief among them the corn, the beans, 
and the squash, and their ceremonial points to the 
existence of a more or less distinct belief in divin- 
ities subordinate to Ha-wen-m'-yu, having direct 
relation to, and control over, these products of 
nature. They are of sufficient importance to re- 
ceive especial mention in the thanksgiving prayer 
or chant used at this festival. These divinities, if 
such they may be termed, are known as the Three 
Sisters, the Spirit of Corn, the Spirit of Beans 
and the Spirit of Squashes. The sisters were pict- 
ured as having forms of great beauty and wearing 
apparel made of the leaves of plants. In the Iro- 
quois language they were called De-o-ha-ko. Our 
Life or our Supporters. There are also, according 
to the belief of the Pagan Iroquois, other spirit 
agents of Ha-wen-ne-yu, charged by him with con- 
trol of medicinal plants and herbs, of trees and 
shrubs, rivers and streams, and of many other ob- 
jects in nature. Chief among these is He-no, the 
Thunderer, whom by a curious association of ideas 
the Iroquois describe as their grandfather. He re- 
sembled somewhat the Thor of the Teutonic my- 



58 
thology. He was the avenger of evil deeds, and 
was charged by Ha-wen-ne-yu also with producing 
the showers and the dew. He was described as 
wearing the costume of a warrior, and as having a 
magical feather which rendered him invulnerable 
against the attacks of Han-ne-go-ate-geh, the Evil 
Minded. There is a reminder in this of the ideas 
of the Greeks about their favorite hero Achilles, 
who was invulnerable, except in his heel. As 
He- no rde in the clouds he carried a basket of 
rocks, which he launched at evil spirits and witch- 
es Invocations to He- no in the Springtime to 
water the seeds planted are made, and at Harvest 
time Ha-wen-ne-yu is thanked for bestowing, 
through He-no, the gift of rain. According to 
some legends, the residence of He-no was under the 
great Falls of Niagara, doubtless in what the guide 
books now call the Cave of the Winds. The inva- 
sion of Summer tourists has, of course, long since 
driven him from this retreat. 

The religious system of the Iroquois includes 
besides the belief in Ha-wen-ne-yu and his numer- 
ous agents, a belief in the Evil Minded one, Ha-ne- 
go-ate-geh, and countless okis, or demons, whose 
work is to circumvent and destroy that of Hawen- 
ne-yu, and bring evil to Indians as well as to tempt 
them from virtuous and upright lives. Various 
customs have been in vogue from the earliest 




Chief Red Cloud, Oh-tgae-yah eht, Cayuga. 

Red Cloud was guard of honor to King Edward VII when, as Prince of 
Wales, he visited Canada during the sixties. He has been present at most 
of the ceremonies since held in which Canadian Iroquois have participated, 
and during the Pan-American Exposition occupied one of the cabins of 
the «!iv Nations Villape. 



61 

times to oppose these evil spirits or destroy the 
effect of their machinations. 

The religious ceremonial of the Iroquois is based 
upon the many aspects of the varying seasons. 
Generally speaking, this has always been so, but 
both ritual and teaching experienced many 
changes in consequence of the reforms introduced 
about a century ago by the Iroquois prophet, 
Ga-ne-o-di-o, as the name is spelled in the dialect 
of the Senecas, to which nation Ga-ne o dio, 
or Handsome Lake, belonged. The ceremonial 
now used by the pagan Iroquois, and the system 
of doctrine and code of ethics taught by the 
" keepers of the faith " in the long houses to-day 
are those believed to have been authorized by 
Handsome Lake, who is said to have received from 
Ha-wen-ne-yu especial instruction as to the re- 
forms needed to prevent the Iroquois from lapsing 
into degeneracy through indulgence in vices 
learned through association with whites. 

There is a possibility of comparison between 
the ecclesiastical or church year of the Christians 
and the regularly recurring religious or semi-re- 
ligious festivals of the Iroquois with their ritual, 
fitting for the respective seasons. But while the 
Christian year commemorates events in the history 
of Christianity, or the life of its founder, or em- 
phasizes doctrines taught by the Church, the In- 



62 
dian's festivals are all in the nature of thanksgiv- 
ings to Ha-vven-ne yu for the benefits conferred at 
the different seasons, here again the red man's 
strong affection for the things of nature being 
manifest. The Indian had no Sabbath, but the 
recurring seasons never failed to remind him of 
the goodness of Ha-wen-ne yu, and in the various 
festivals he always took occasion to express in his 
own way his gratitude. At the present day upon %/ 
the various reservations, the principal festivals are 
celebrated with apparently undiminished interest 
and devotion to the customs of the fathers and the 
scenes when the functions are in progress, while 
lacking, perhaps, some of the spectacular charac- 
ter they possessed when the Indians lived in bark 
houses and wore skins and furs, still possess great 
picturesqueness. 

It is related that the Four Messengers or angels, 
through whom Ga-ne-o-di-o is said to have re- 
ceived his revelation or instructions from Ila- 
wen-ne-yu, told the prophet " You shall worship 
Ha-wen-ne-yu by dancing the turtle dance at the 
New Moon when the strawberry ripens, at the 
New Moon of the green corn you shall give a 
thanksgiving dance. In the mid-winter, at the 
New Moon, you shall give another thanksgiving 
dance. You shall have a thanksgiving at the New 
Moon at the time of the making of sugar. You 



63 

shall dance at the New Moon of planting time and 
pray for a good harvest. You shall dance at the 
New Moon of the harvest time, and give thanks 
for what Ha-wen nc-yu has given you. You shall 
make your prayers and dance in the forenoon, for 
at midday Ha-wen-ne-yu goes to rest and will not 
hear your worship." 

The principal festivals or dances here mentioned 
continue to be observed by the Iroquois upon their 
various reservations with as much regularity as the 
festivals of Christmas and Easter are observed by 
the Christian Church. An important festival in 
addition to these is the Six Nations' dance, which 
is held in the early autumn. Although these fes- 
tivals are referred to as dances, they include, as I 
have said, much beside the dancing, the ritual for 
some of the festivals being quite elaborate ; and 
though it is not a written one, the details of the 
ceremonies from year to year possess remarkable 
similarity. 

There is much misconception as to these dances 
of the Indian, and it is hard for the average per- 
son of white blood and Christian belief to under- 
stand how such performances can have to do with 
anything deserving to be called religion. Bear in 
mind, then, that thanksgiving to Ha-wen- ncyu 
and to the subordinate deities to whom the 
Master of Life delegates His power over aspects of 



64 

nature is the chief part in the worship of the Iro- 
quois Indian. There is little or no part in this 
worship for petitions asking forgiveness for sin, 
and, so far as his ceremonial is concerned, the Iro- 
quois Indian does not seem to be conscious of 
commission of sin in the sense the word is under- 
stood by Christians. Ha-wen-neyu, according to 
Iroquois belief, knew that the Indian could not 
liye without some amusement, so he instituted the 
dance. This custom of the Indian is, indeed, 
partly an act of worship. Some of the dances are 
more religious functions than others. But the 
worship of the Indian is of so different a character 
from that of the white man that it is difficult 
rightly to draw distinctions of this kind. Being 
entirely a worship of thanksgiving, and therefore 
of a cheerful and joyful character, there is not 
the incongruity in the introduction of the dance 
as a part of the ceremonies that there might be 
were the latter composed of litanies or of prayers 
to the Almighty, such as are offered on bended 
knees in Christian Churches. The dancer shows 
his intense enjoyment of the exercise and his good 
feeling and levity by gestures and laughter, and 
emitting at certain intervals a vigorous whoop, 
either individually or in unison with others. Yet 
while amusement enters into these dances in greater 
or less degree, some of them have an aspect of no 



65 

little dignity, and are performed with considerable 
solemnity, especially by the old men and old 
women, who always take part, for a time, in such 
functions, evidently as a means of showing their 
continued loyalty to the customs and beliefs of 
their ancestors. To the members of the younger 
generation they usually leave the privilege of 
adorning themselves in fantastic costumes and 
dress of typical Indian character, though some- 
times one sees an old Indian who takes pride in 
wearing the peculiar adornments in which the red 
man has delighted since times long before the 
white man discovered the Continent, and usually 
there are in the procession of dancers two or three 
aged squaws, beneath whose abbreviated skirts ap- 
pear the trouser-like coverings for the legs, the 
leggin, embroidered with bead work, worn by the 
squaws of the olden time. Another point should 
be made clear in regard to the character of these 
dances, namely, the fact that though in many of 
them women take part, there is no contact be- 
tween the different sexes, each person going sepa- 
rately around the song bench in single, double or 
triple file, as the case may be, usually the men in 
one line, the women in another. Tiierefore, if 
any point as to morality is to be made, as between 
the white man's dance and that of the red man, it 
would seem that the latter had rather the best end 



of the argument. No doubt, in the olden time, a 
great deal more wild and barbaric character apper- 
tained to these exercises than is now customary, 
though they are still performed with much aban- 
don and vigorous movement. But in the long 
houses on the reservations at the present day they 
are entirely innocent and harmless diversions, so 
far as they are merely diversions or amusements, 
and though the ancient formulas of thankgiving 
to Ha-wen-ne-yu are repeated, and the time- 
honored songs or chants rendered as their accom- 
paniments, or in the intervals of the dances, it is 
doubtless true that they are losing, gradually, 
the pronounced religious or allegorical significance 
they anciently possessed, and their gradual aban- 
donment as ceremonies partaking of a religious 
nature is sure to occur, as the red man's religion 
loses more and more its distinctive character 
through the contact of the Iroquois Indian with 
white civilization. 




"i-^A^ 



Six Nations Village, Pan-American Exposition, 
Showing Log Cabins. 



NEW YEAR'S FESTIVAL OR DANCE. 

To describe all the ceremonies of these various 
festivals would require more space than can here 
be given to the subject. Often an entire week is 
devoted to the exercises of a single festival, and it 
is impossible to give, in detail, even the program 
for one such occasi-on. It must suffice to describe 
the exercises of a single day. The New Year's 
festival or dance is always appointed so as to com- 
mence five days after the first new moon in Feb- 
ruary, this being the only festival not varied to 
accommodate circumstances. The interesting cere- 
mony of notifying the Indians faithful to the relig- 
ious traditions of their ancestors that the time for 
observing the New Year's festival was at hand took 
place as usual at the Long House on the Cattarau- 
gus reservation in the winter of 1901, the appointed 
day falling on Friday. At that lime the announ- 
cers, two in number, wearing buffalo robes and 
masks of corn husks, and carrying corn pounders, 
left the Long House for their customary tour among 
the homes of the pagan residents of the reserva- 
tion. On the Thursday following, the Big Feather 
Dance, which is a dance of high thanksgiving to 
the Good Creator, was performed, and other cere- 
monies which accompany it were observed. The 



68 
time intervening had been occupied with the other 
customary ceremonies incident to that festival. 
On Thursday, about noon, one of the keepers of 
the faith, addressing the people assembled in the 
Long House, said that he was sorry they had not 
begun earlier in the morning, so that they might 
end the ceremonies at noon, as it had been ap- 
pointed ; that they ought not to be kept away or 
delayed by work during this period of thanksgiv- 
ing. He then rehearsed the reasons for this gath- 
ering, and told of the things to be done, and the 
appointed way for doing them. This address 
lasted about twenty minutes. Two men, seated 
astride the song bench, facing each other, began 
to play the turtle rattles. After a few minutes, 
they began to sing, together, accompanying them- 
selves with the rattles. The dancers, in costume, 
walked slowly around the bench, increasing the 
movement with increasing play of rattles, ending 
the dance with a short exclamation. 

This was repeated many times, others falling in 
line, those in costume leading, the old men and 
women following in order, until about forty men 
and boys were in line, and nearly thirty women 
and girls. The women and girls formed an inner 
circle about the singers ; turtle rattles being ex- 
changed for horn rattles and small drums, the 
men formed an outer circle about the women. 



5 G 







Jft-^-<^^^^ 



71 

Dancing, with very short pauses between, fol- 
lowed for considerable time. The Big Feather 
Dance was formerly at this festival performed in 
connection with the sacrifice of the white dog, 
which will be described later. The latter ancient 
ceremony, the subject of so much discussion as to 
its origin and significance, is no longer carried 
out on the reservations of New York State, 
though it still survives among the Canadian 
Indians on the Grand River Reserve. It is about 
twenty years since it was discontinued in New York 
State. The thanksgiving address or chant to Ha- 
wen-ne-yu, which has always been rendered as a 
leading ceremony of this festival, was, however, 
given as usual upon this occasion. The Indian 
who acted as officiating keeper of the faith or 
Master of Rites took his place near the singers 
and began the chant in the Seneca dialect, a free 
rendering of which follows : 

Brothers, listen. I have been appointed Master 
of Rites for this day. This is the time appointed 
for giving thanks to the Good Creator for every- 
thing He has given us, now that the people are 
assembled. 

We give thanks to the Good Creator for every- 
thing He has given us to enjoy. May it still re- 
main so. 



72 

We give thanks to the Good Creator for the two 
supreme beings, man and woman, and the purpose 
for which they were created, to have children and 
to continue to people the earth. 

May it still remain so. 

We give thanks to Thee for all kinds of trees 
growing here on earth and for all shrubs. He 
planted all these for the use of man. 

May it still remain so. 

We give thanks to Thee for all plants and herbs 
upon the earth, that give medicine to preserve our 
bodies and cure us of disease inflicted by evil 
spirits. 

May it still remain so. 

We give thanks to Thee for the appointed 
seasons of cold and heat, and for the warm climate, 
when all things planted are made to ripen for the 
use of man. 

May it still remain so. 

We give thanks to Thee for all the blessings of 
the children creeping upon the earth. 

May it still remain so. 

We give thanks to Thee for the animals which 
are made to live to be for the food of man. 

May it still remain so. 

We give thanks to Thee for the rivers and 
streams which run upon the bosom of the earth 
for the comfort of man. 



73 

May it still remain so. 

We give thanks to Thee for the clouds and for 
the rain, sent to moisten the ground, and for the 
dew, and for the thunder that rolls above us, our 
grandfather. 

May it still remain so. 

We give thanks to Thee for the sun which Thou 
hast made to give light to man by day. 
May it still remain so. 

We give thanks to Thee for the moon, our 
grandmother, which Thou hast made to give light 
when the sun has gone to rest. 
May it still remain so. 

We give thanks to Thee for the sparkling stars 
upon the heavens, to give light upon the children. 
May it still remain so. 

We give thanks to Thee for the Four Messengers 
who were sent to instruct us and watch over us by 
day and by night. 

May it still remain so. 

We give thanks to Thee for the Three Sisters, the 
main supporters of our lives. 
May it still remain so. 

We give thanks to Thee for all things upon the 
earth which Thou hast created for the use and 
pleasure of man 

May it still remain so when our grandchildren 
are here in our place. 



74 

I have done all that I could and I have done all 
that was appointed. 

There is considerable difference in the versions 
given of this thanksgiving chant or address, both 
in respect to the arrangement of the clauses and 
the language used. This is not strange, consider- 
ing that the Iroquois ritual is not a written one, 
and for that reason must vary in minor details 
each time it is rendered, but the main ideas are 
the same. Between each of these stanzas, it 
should be remembered, the dancing is continued, 
the religious significance of this dance being in- 
tensified by the ideas expressed in the thanksgiv- 
ing. 

It will occur to some that there is a strong re- 
semblance between this chant and the venerable 
Christian hymn of praise and thanksgiving called 
the " Benedicite." The opening stanzas of this 
anthem are : 

" all ye works of the Lord, 
Bless ye the Lord, praise him and magnify him forever." 

Succeeding stanzas call ujion the sun, the moon, 
the stars, the Summer and Winter, the fire and 
heat, the dew and frost, the ice and snow, the 
angels of the Lord and all the children of men to 
praise him and magnify him forever. 



75 
The idea suggests itself whether the Indian an- 
them has any relation to the Christian hymn, the 
latter, by the way, far antedating in origin the 
Christian era. Though the Iroquois obtained 
many ideas from the Jesuits, it is unnecessary to 
seek for such an origin for this chant, for it is as- 
sociated with a ceremony, that of the burning of 
the white dog, long antedating the Jesuit era, and 
the chant itself expresses the ideas of thankful- 
ness to Ha-wen-ne-yu for bounties of nature which 
were the uppermost ideas of the worship of the 
Iroquois. One would prefer to regard the similar- 
ity as merely another coincidence showing how 
the Creator has implanted in human hearts, the 
world over, the same instincts of gratitude to their 
Maker. 




Group of Chiefs at the Grave of Red Jacket. 



Chester Lay, 
Solomon O'Bail 

(Grandson of Cornplanter), 
William Nephew 

(Grandson of Black Snake), 



George Hemlock, 
Aleck John, 
Albert G. Smith, 
John Jacket 

(Grandson of Red lacket^. 



THE BURNING OF THE WHITE DOG. 

The burniug of the white dog is a strange aud 
curious ceremony. Its precise signiticance has 
long been a matter of dispute. How much or 
how little it partakes of the nature of a sacrifice 
it is impossible to say. It is the one ceremony of 
the ancient Iroquois of a sacrificial cliaracter which 
has survived to our own time. Its origin takes us 
back into a pre-historic era, an era antedating by 
several centuries the so-called " revelation " to 
Handsome Lake, upon which the ritual of the 
pagan Iroquois of to-day is based. At one time the 
custom of feasting upon its flesh, as that of a sacred 
animal, was associated with the sacrifice, and the 
ceremonies of the burning of the dog, as a whole, 
were anciently so peculiar as to call for especial 
attention from the early explorers and missionaries 
who made records of their observations as to the 
habits of the aborigines. Although we are unable to 
fix the origin of the ceremony or its precise signifi- 
cance, most writers agree that tlie idea of atone- 
ment has little, if anything, to do with the burn- 
ing of the white dog. In this respect it is alto- 
gether different from the animal sacrifices offered 
by most heathen peoples in the Old World, both 



77 
in ancient and modern times. The theory has 
been advanced that the ceremony is based on the 
idea of substitution, and dates from a very ancient 
time, when, perhaps, the master was burned on a 
funeral pyre as a sacrifice to the sun, the dog 
being burned with him, and gradually, as time 
passed on, being sacrificed in place of his master. 
Other writers see in the ceremony the survival of 
an ancient belief connecting the new year with 
faith in personal immortality, the color, white, 
being symbolic of light, life and re-birth, and the 
dog being regarded with especial fondness by the 
Indian, and being given in some respects a sacred 
character. The Canadian Iroquois have preserved 
the longest the usages of this ancient ceremony, 
and in the report of the Minister of Education for 
the Province of Ontario, 1898, the following trans- 
lation is given of the opening words used by the 
Master of Rites when the dog has been killed, 
decorated, and placed on the fire ready to be 
burned : " Great Master, behold here all of our 
people who hold the old faith and intend to abide 
by it. By means of this dog being burned, we 
hope to please Thee, and that just as we have 
decked it with ribbons and wampum, Thou wilt 
grant favors to us Thy own people. 

" I now place the dog on the fire that its spirit 
may find its way to Thee who made it, and made 



78 
everything, and thus we hope to get blessings from 
Thee in return." 

The details of the white dog ceremony are nu- 
merous, and the observance had some features in 
former times which have been modified or dropped 
altogether in recent years. It is customary to 
deck the body of the animal, after it has been 
killed by strangling, with ribbons of many colors, 
with feathers and with wampum. Tobacco is 
burned during the ceremony. Speeches or chants 
are made over the dog, the people joining in cer- 
tain portions of the chants. In the time of the 
historian, Lewis H. Morgan, the body of the dog 
was borne to the blazing altar upon a sort of bark 
litter, behind which the people came in Indian 
file. It may be of interest to quote the explana- 
tion of the ceremony given by Morgan, as it seems 
the most natural and plausible advanced by any 
writer on this much debated subject : 

"The burning of the dog had not the slightest 
connection with the sins of the people. On the 
contrary, the simple idea of the sacrifice was to 
send up the spirit of the dog as a messenger to the 
Great Spirit to announce their continued fidelity 
to His service, and also to convey to Him their 
united thanks for the blessings of the jear. The 
fidelity of the dog, the companion of the Indian, 
as a hunter, was emblematical of their fidelity. No 



79 

messenger so trusty could be found to bear their 
petitions to the Master of Life. The Iroquois be- 
lieved that the Great Spirit had made a covenant 
with their fathers to the effect that when they 
should send up to Him the spirit of a dog, of a 
spotless white, He would receive it as the pledge of 
their adherence to His worship, and His ears would 
thus be opened in an especial manner to their peti- 
tions. To approach Hawen-nc-yu in the most 
acceptable manner, and to gain attention to their 
thanksgiving acknowledgments and supplications 
in the way of His own appointing, was the end and 
object of the burning. They hung around his 
neck a string of white wampum, the pledge of 
their faith. They believed that the spirit of the 
dog hovered around the body until it was commit- 
ted to the flames, when it ascended into the pres- 
ence of the Great Spirit, itself the acknowledged 
evidence of their fidelity, and bearing also to Him 
the united thanks and supplications of the people. 
This sacrifice was the most solemn and impressive 
manner of drawing near to the Great Spirit known 
to the Iroquois. They used the spirit of the dog 
in precisely the same manner that they did the in- 
cense of tobacco, as an instrumentality through 
which to commune with their Maker. This sacri- 
fice was their highest act of piety." 



FOLK-LORE AND BELIEFS AS TO 
FUTURE STATE. 

The American Indians have always been fond of 
preserving, from generation to generation by word 
of mouth, fabulous tales and myths of their di- 
vinities or demi-gods. Among the Iroquois this 
was a strong characteristic. One of their tales was 
of a buffalo of such huge dimensions that he 
could thresh down the forest in his march. There 
are other tales of monster mosquitos which thrust 
their bills through the bodies of their victims and 
drew their blood in the twinkling of an eye. 
There were tales of a race of stone giants who 
dwelt in the far North; of a monster bear, more 
terrific than the giant buffalo ; of lizards more de- 
structive even than the serpent who could paralyze 
by a look. These tales, together with others, in 
which fact was embellished with fiction, were a 
part of the belief of the Iroquois, entering into 
their daily life, and explaining, largely, many of 
their customs. These fables were mainly the same, 
whether told in the dialect of the Mohawk, Onon- 
daga, Oneida or Seneca. They were rehearsed for 
the benefit of the youths and maidens at the fireside 



81 
in the village, and the lodge in the depth of the 
wilderness. 

The immortality of the soul, or life in the hap- 
py hunting grounds, was a fixed belief of the Iro- 
quois. With it is now taught by pagan Iroquois 
belief in future punishment, though how much 
this is a later addition to the primitive faith of the 
Iroquois is a matter of dispute. When Christian- 
ity swept away the beliefs of the ancient Greeks 
and Romans, in Zeus and Juno, Hermes and Aph- 
rodite, and of the later Saxons and Teutons in 
Woden and Thor, many heathen customs were 
adopted by the church which were not deemed in- 
consistent with Christian principle and practice. 
In the same way the ancient faith of the Iroquois 
has taken up and absorbed mauy ideas from the 
faith of the Christian white man, and thus, though 
not radically changed, it is a paganism tinctured 
more or less strongly with Christianity. This is 
seen especially in the ideas of the Pagan Iroquois 
to-day about a future state. The immortality of 
the soul and a belief in future punishment of some 
kind for the wicked was, it is believed, always 
taught among the Iroquois. From as early a time 
as we can obtain any knowledge, they have believed 
that the wicked, after death, pass into the dark 
realm of Ha-ne-go-ate-geh. The teaching of the 
present pagan Iroquois is that those who are not 



82 
consumed by the degree of punishment inflicted 
are, after this purification, translated to the abode 
of Ha-wen-ne-yu. Evil deeds in the present life 
are believed to be neutralized by meritorious acts. 
If the latter overbalance, the spirit passes direct 
to Ha-wen-nc-yu-geh, but if the contrary, it goes 
to Ha-nis-ha-6-nogeh, the abode of the Evil 
Minded, where the just degree of punishment is 
inflicted, heinous crimes, such as witchcraft and 
murder, being punished everlastingly. How much 
the present form of this belief is due to the teach- 
ing of the Jesuits it would be impossible to say. 

Eeverence for the aged was, and is, a character- 
istic of the Iroquois. In this they can, at the 
present time, furnish an example to white people 
well worthy of emulation. The respect shown by 
Indian boys and girls to the aged compares with 
the behavior toward their elders of many white 
children, rather to the disadvantage of the latter. 

This respect was taught by the law-givers and 
prophets of the Iroquois as a part of their relig- 
ious belief. Hospitality and brotherhood were 
also regarded as among the cardinal virtues. 

Respect for the dead was another marked char- 
acteristic of Iroquois teaching and faith. Burial 
customs among them have varied. Burial in the 
sitting position, facing the East, and exposure in 
trees followed by interment of the bones after de- 



83 
composition of the flesh had been completed, were 
both followed at different times. Sometimes it 
was customary to collect these skeletons from, the 
whole community around and inter them in a 
common resting place. But in either case, there 
was a period of mourning for the deceased, and 
when this expired, it was believed the spirit had 
passed to the abode of Ha-wen-ne-yu, and feasting 
and rejoicing succeeded. In ancient times a beau- 
tiful custom prevailed of capturing a bird and 
freeing it to waft upward the spirit of the departed. 
When the body was buried, the bow and arrows, 
pipes and tobacco were placed beside it, and also 
necessary food, as it was supposed nourishment for 
the body would be required during the journey. 
Placing food in the grave is still the custom among 
the pagan Iroquois of the Grand River reservation 
in Canada, though it appears to have mostly lapsed 
on the reservations in New York State, as has the 
burning of the white dog. The face was painted 
and the best apparel the dead Indian possessed 
was put upon him. To these customs it is owing 
that so many interesting relics are found in Indian 
graves. They are customs which are found among 
the Iroquois and most other Indian races as well. 
The relics of the Mound Builders indicate that 
they, too, had similar beliefs. 



84 

The IroqiTois Heaven differed in many ways from 
that of other Indian tribes less intelligent and 
spiritual in their ideas of the future The abode 
of Ha-wen-nt'-yu was a sinless dwelling place 
where the good Indians lived amid every beautiful 
thing that the simple mind of the Eed Man could 
imagine. Its inhabitants possessed bodies and re- 
membered their former friends, families were re- 
united, no evil could enter, and the festivities in 
which they had delighted amid the forests of earth 
were celebrated eternally in the presence of Ha- 
wen-ne-yu. 

Grreat respect, and an awe amounting almost to 
worship, have always been felt by the Indians for 
the Falls of Niagara, the thunder of whose mighty 
cataract spoke to them of a mysterious power in 
some way greater and more divine than nature or 
man. He-no, the Thunderer, who, as stated in a 
previous chapter, was believed to have control, under 
H;i-wen-n6-yu, of the clouds and the waters, the rain 
and the snow, dwelt under the great fall, according 
to the simple belief of the red men, and many a 
legend, in which He-no figures, is associated with Ni- 
agara's roar. One legend tells of how the god carried 
off a dusky but beautiful maiden whose father's 
lodge was at Ga-u-gwa, on the banks of Cayuga 
Ci'cek, near what is now La Salle. This maiden 
was very despondent because of her betrothal to 



85 



an old man of ugly appearance and manners, and 
as there was no escape, according to the laws of 
the tribe, from this union, she determined upon 
suicide by going over the Falls, a remedy for in- 
curable ills of mind and body, sought by many 
despondent persons since her time. As she was 
going over the brink of the cataract in her canoe, 
He-no caught her in a blanket and carried her, with- 
out injury, to his home in the Cave of the Winds. 
She became the bride of one of his assistant thun- 
derers, and there the happy couple might have 
been living yet, in their watery home, but that a 
pestilence afflicted the maiden's people which the 
Thunder God knew was caused by a serpent that 
poisoned the water they drank. She 
was sent by He-no to tell them the 
secret of the pestilence, and with 
He-no's aid the horrible snake was 
killed, but the body of the monster 
drifted down the river and dammed 
up the water until when the flood 
was released, a portion of the preci- 
pice was broken ofp, and the home of 
He-no under the fall was destroyed. 
The Thunder God, therefore, went 
away to live in the far-off west, 
from which he has never returned. 




One of the most famous Indian legends con- 
nected with the Niagara Cataract is that of the 
Maid of the Mist. According to this beautiful 
legend the superstitious Indians who dwelt in the 
vicinity of the fall, and who belonged to the 
Nenter nation, afterward conquered and absorbed 
by the Iroquois, were accustomed in ancient 
times to make an annual sacrifice of one of the 
comeliest maidens of the tribe. She was chosen 
by lot from among those eligible for the honor, for 
such it was regarded. At the appointed time, and 
after the performance of the customary ceremonies, 
she was placed in a white bark canoe, laden with 
fruit and flowers, and set adrift in the rapids, 
which carrjAed her swiftly to destruction in the 
cataract below. Upon one occasion the choice fell 
upon the daughter of the principal chief, who, 
true to Indian stoicism, made no protest against 
his daughter's sacrifice. Bat as her canoe shot 
into the rapids, he pushed his own after it and the 
two, father and daughter, perished together. The 
loss of the chief was so regretted by the Indians 
that the custom of having such a sacrifice was 
abolished. But the daughter's form was often 
seen thereafter in the spray of the fall, and hence 
arose the fancy of the Maid of the Mist. 



IN AND ABOUT BUFFALO. 

At first thought it seems hardly possible that it 
is but a little more than one hundred years — a 
single century — since the time when the first white 
settlement in Buffalo was made and the Senecas 
were the sole owners of and dwellers in the forests 
that stood on the present site of the city. By 
each successive treaty, at Fort Stanwix in 1784, 
Buffalo Creek in 1788, and Geneseo in 1797, the 
Indian title to lands in New York State was grad- 
ually lessened until only the Reservations, embrac- 
ing 338 square miles, remained. Buffalo Creek 
Reservation was the largest, containing 130 square 
miles, and title to much of this land was trans- 
ferred to the whites in 1826. Finally, in 1843-4, 
the Indians of the Buffalo Creek Reservation 
abandoned their home of more than half a century, 
their gathering place for two centuries, and were 
scattered about on various reservations. There 
remained then only the Seneca Mission Church 
and the old burying ground, occupying the site of 
an ancient Indian fort, and there rested the re- 
mains of Red Jacket, Young King, Little Billy, 
Tall Peter, Destroy Town, Captain Pollard and 
many other chiefs and head men of the Senecas. 

There, too, were interred the remains of Mary 
Jamison, "The White Woman." The Seneca 



Nation, located at the western end of the State, 
the Long House of the League, were the Keepers 
of the Western Door, and as such were known as 
The Watchmen. So, too, Ked Jacket, whose 
memory has been perpetuated as that of one of the 
noblest and most able of his people, was known as 
Sa-go-ye-wat-ha, He Keeps Them Awake, and by 
historians has been called " The Last of the 
Senecas," for no other has ever arisen to take the 
place of this wonderful orator, " whose eloquence 
was the glory of his people/' Born about 1750, 
near the present town of Geneva, N. Y., of humble 
parentage. Red Jacket "owed nothing to the 
advantages of illustrious descent," and it is as an 
orator, not as a warrior, that he won his fame. 
" I am an orator. I was born an orator " are his 
own characterizing words. 

During the Revolution he acted as runner or 
messenger to the British officers along the Frontier, 
and it was at that time he gained his English 
name. One of the officers presented him with a 
red jacket of which he was exceedingly proud. 
Two or three other such red jackets, successive 
gifts, became his badge of distinction and gave to 
him the name by which he will ever be known. 
As a young man he bore the name of 0-te-ti-ani, 
Always Ready. 

Although lacking in physical courage, even so 
much as to incur the sneers and hatred of his more 




Monument to Eed Jacket, Forest Lawn Cemetery, 
Erected by Buffalo Historical Society. 



91 
warlike contemporaries, he was wonderfully strong 
in moral courage ; accused of being more friendly 
to the white men than to his own people, no 
man was ever more loyal to his nation, more solic- 
itous for their welfare, more keen and unrelenting 
in his efforts to meet and match the cunning of the 
men who would take from his people their lands 
and their birthright. He died January 30, 1830, 
at his home near the old Seneca Mission House. 
His speeches, some of which, happily, have been 
preserved, are his most enduring monument. Yet 
Red Jacket has not lacked other memorial of 
bronze and marble. The Buffalo Historical So- 
ciety rescued his remains, taken from the old cem- 
etery and hidden for a time, and in 1892, with ap- 
propriate exercises, in the presence of his blood 
descendants and his people's descendants in the 
ownership of their lands, dedicated to the memory 
of the famous orator and sachem the monument 
and statue which stands in Forest Lawn near the 
Delaware Avenue entrance. In the same plot, 
given to the Society by the Buffalo City Cemetery 
(Forest Lawn), were placed the remains of the 
other chiefs named above as buried in the Indian 
Cemetery. Here also are the remains of Gen. Ely 
S. Parker, Do-ne-ho-ga-weh, Secretary to Gen. 
Grant during the Civil War and of Deerfoot, Hot- 
tyo-so-do-no, He Peeks In The Door, the famous 
runner. The medal and the tomahawk given Eed 



93 

Jacket by President George Washington are now 
in the possession of the Buffalo Historical Society. 

As Red Jacket was first among his people as 
orator and counsellor, so Cornplanter was first as 
warrior. Cornplanter's Indian name was Gyant- 
wa-ka, but he was often spoken of as Captain 
O'Bail. He was born about 1732, at Conewangus 
on the Genesee River. His father was John Abeel, 
a Dutch trader who lived at Albany and his mother 
an Indian woman, probably the daughter of a 
sachem. Ga-ne-o-di-yo, Handsome Lake, and Ta- 
wanne-ars, Black Snake, were his half brothers, 
all three being Seneca chiefs. 

Cornplanter took part in the French and Indian 
War, serving with the French ; during the War of 
the Revolution he fought with the British, but 
after 1783 he was a staunch friend of the United 
States, and at the time of the War of 1812, al- 
though more than 80 years old, he offered his ser- 
vices to the United States. Though not called 
into service, he sent a body of his men led by his 
own son. He visited and addressed President 
Washington on several occasions, and was sent by 
the President in 1791 on an embassy of peace and 
reconciliation among the Indians of the North- 
west. In this mission, however, he was unsuccess- 
ful. After the peace-treaty of 1783, in his services 
at the time of various councils and treaty-makings 
and especially in his influence over the Six Nations, 



94 
Cornplanter proved himself the friend of the 
United States. Cornplanter earnestly sought the 




'tiAf:^,^ 



Mary Jkmison, The White Woman. 

friendship of the United States and because of his 
willingness to have his people give over portions of 
their lands, his popularity among them decreased. 



95 

Eed Jacket was not slow to incite this feeling 
toward Cornplanter, and in turn was publicly de- 
nounced by Cornplanter, Eed Jacket's trial was 
held at Buffalo Creek, and after he had spoken 
more than three hours in defense Red Jacket won 
the victory. Thereafter Cornplanter repaired to 
his land on the Allegheny River, granted him in 
1796 by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. 
There he died in 1836, and there at his village, 
Jennesadaga, stands a monument to his memory, 
erected by the State of Pennsylvania. 

Both Red Jacket and Cornplanter, each wise in 
his generation, won the confidence of their people, 
Red Jacket fiercely opposing the whites, Corn- 
planter adopting conciliatory measures. 

The third of whom I write in this brief sketch 
is The White Woman, Mary Jemison, stolen from 
her home by the Indians, with whom she after- 
ward lived, married, and died. She was born on 
board the ship William and Mary, bound for Phil- 
adelphia in 1742-3, the daughter of Thomas and 
Jane (Erwin) Jemison, who settled on Marsh Creek 
in Western Pennsylvania. In 1755, together with 
her father, mother and brothers she was captured 
by a party of Shawnees. Of her family she alone 
was spared and was taken to Ohio. There she was 
formally adopted by the Indians and given the 
name Deh-he-wa-mis, Pretty Girl. She married 



first a Delaware, She-nin-jee, who died soon after 
they removed to the Genesee Flats in 1759. She 
married second Hi-ok-a-too, known also as Gar- 
deau, half-brother to Farmer's brother. At the 
Big Tree Council in 1797, her claim to land was 
presented by Farmer's brother. Red Jacket op- 
posed her, but she was granted a rich tract of nearly 
18,000 acres, with the Genesee River running 
through it, known as the Gardeau Reservation. 
The Senecas sold their Genesee Reservation in 
1825, leaving Mary Jemison alone among the 
whites. Accordingly she sold her land and in 1831 
removed to the Buffalo Reservation. In the sum- 
mer of 1833 she joined the Christians under the 
Rev. Asher Wright, and in September of that year, 
died at the age of ninety-one. She was the mother 
of five children. In 1874: her remains were re- 
moved from the old Mission Burying Ground by 
her grandson, Dr. James Shongo, and now rest 
near the old Indian Council House on the grounds 
owned by the Hon. Wm. P. Letchworth, near 
Portage, where her grave is suitably marked by a 
monument. 

For extended accounts of the three lives here so 
briefly sketched the reader is referred to Stone's 
Life and Times of Red Jacket, the Cornplanter 
Memorial by Snowden and the Life of Mary Jem- 
ison by Seaver. 



SIX NATIONS EXHIBIT AT THE 
PAN-AMERICAN. 



When the idea of a Pan-Ameri- 
can Exposition was first suggested, 
and Cayuga Island, near Niagara 
Falls, was fixed upon as its site, 
by the first promoters of the 
enterprise, Capt. R E. Lawton, 
who had made the Iroquois Indians 
a special study for ten years, con- 
ceived the plan of giving a living 
exhibit of these Iroquois. His 
ideas were presented to Mr. Rich- 
mond C. Hill, Secretary of the 
Exposition Company, as it existed 
at that time. When the company was re organized 
and the site where the Rainbow City has since been 
built was chosen, Mr, Lawton renewed his efforts 
for such an exhibit of the Six Nations. Much in- 
terest in this plan was taken by the Hon. Wra. I. 
Buchanan, Director- General of the Exposition, 
who realized the appropriateness of giving such an 




R. E. Lawton, 



SuperintL-ndent Six Nations 
Exhibit. 



98 
historical exhibit of the Indians belonging to tlie 
famous Iroquois Confederacy, in view of the fact 
that the exposition was to be held on the Niagara 
Frontier, with which the traditions and history of 
these people have been associated for centuries 
past. It was immediately recognized that such an 
exhibit would be something quite out of the ordi- 
nary, and especially interesting and educational. 
Captain Lawton at once began preparations for 
obtaining the bark and other materials for the 
bark houses and log cabins to be erected for the 
portrayal of the customs of these Indians from the 
earliest period known to historians to the present 
time. 

After beginning work, the Indians soon came to 
be interested in the construction of the village, 
and the credit for the success of the exhibit belongs 
to them and to the Superintendent of the exhibit, 
Mr. Lawton, for all the work has been done by 
them, under his direction. They built the log 
cabins and the stockade with its bark houses and 
arranged their contents with the view to showing 
the visitor a picture of life among the ancient 
Iroquois, and also customs and habits of living 
among the Indians of the Six Nations on the 
reservations of New York State and Canada 
to-day. 



IROQUOIS CHIEFS AT SIX NATIONS VILLAGE. 

1. Chief Sa-go-ye-wat-ha, Seneca, successor to Red Jacket. 

2. Chief Wm. Fishcarrier, 90 years, Sachem Chief Cayu- 

gas. 

3. Chief Sah-de-gon-yehs, Onondaga. 

4. R. E. Lawton, Superintendent Six Nations Exhibit. 

5. Chief Yah-yon-don, Medicine Man, Onondaga. 

6. Chief Red Cloud, 83 years, Cayuga. 

7. Chief Maurice Green, Seneca. 



101 

In approaching the Six Nations exhibit from 
the Government Building, on the north, the visitor 
after passing the Nebraska Sod House first comes 
to a log cabin which looks as if it might have 
stood here in the midst of the trees for many years. 
It was removed from the Tonawanda Reservation 
and set up again just as it was, as a part of this 
exhibit. It was originally erected by the Indians, 
not long after the close of the Revolutionary War, 
and for over half a century was the home of Nancy 
Johnson, a squaw over 100 years old. (For picture 
see page 24.) 

Next to this cabin is one built for Chief Wm. 
Fishcarrier, Sachem Chief of the Cayugas, and a 
leading man among the Iroquois Indians of the 
reservation at Brantford, Ont. He is a grandson 
of the Chief Fishcarrier who was the friend of 
Washington, and he has the original medal given 
his grandfather by Washington. He now occupies 
this cabin with his two daughters, and is hale and 
hearty in spite of his ninety years. (For his por- 
trait see page 69.) 

The architecture of this cabin represents a style 
which came into use when the Indians first began 
to build log cabins instead of bark houses. 

Next to this is a cabin which shows the manner 
in which the better class of Indians live on the 



102 
New York reservatiooB. It is nicely furnished 
inside and as neat and clean as the home of any 
New England housewife. 

The next cabin is used by the St. Regis Indians, 
and beyond it is one which is also occupied by 
them and used for the sale of souvenirs. 

In one of the cabins may be seen the basket 
makers from the St. Regis reservation, engaged in 
making the beautiful baskets for which these 
Indians are famous. 

The Senecas and Oneidas are known especially 
for their moccasin work, their Lacrosse sticks and 
snow snakes, while the Tuscaroras do very hand- 
some beadwork. 

It may seem like beginning at the wrong end to 
visit the log cabins of the Six Nations exhibit 
before inspecting the stockade, where a portrayal 
is given of the Iroquois as they lived 200, 300 or 
even 400 years ago ; but the visitor approaching 
from the heart of the exposition comes first to the 
cabins, which illustrate the style of living among 
the Six Nations Indians on the reservations of to- 
day ; and passing by these, he finds the stockade, 
within which are the bark houses, close copies of 
the homes of the Iroquois — Senecas, Cayugas, 
Mohawks, Oneidas, and other members of the 
league — as an early explorer would have found them 



104 
200 years ago. (A description of such a stockade 
and village is given on page 13 ) 

The stockade at the Pan-American is, of course, 
much smaller than the ordinary stockade in the 
days of Iroquois supremacy over surrounding tribes; 
but the character of the achitecture and the gen- 
eral appearance of such a village has been faith- 
fully copied in the exhibit of this historic people. 






h: Je 'C7 







.^ 



V- 



I- 









■■>* '<;• ^% 



<'. 



•^.. ,.^- 



-r 



^. 



^-^^ ^^" 






-^ 



> 



y- c<< 



^ <■©■ 

0' '* oV 



, O " " -9 ^^ 



m' 



•° 




,0^ 


'^^ 


0^ ^ 


.'•o. ^> 




.^.r.^f^„-> 



<* 






^■i " '<V^ <L* " .ri\ ^>i />i/^ O 



.^^' 







:c 



.<^' 



-Ni^!^ 






DOBBS BROS. 

LIBRARY BINDING 



ST. AUGUSTINE 

/^ ^v FLA. 

^^^32084 







,^^ 


.-^ 




J 




^- 










) 








* 




v>* 






• * 




O 


V 






\* 




^^ 


-^^, 



>^ 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

'iiiiiii!i'iiiiriiiiiiirii:iiiriiiii!iir 



003 290 970 A 



